Why Microsoft? Why!

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled my Lumia 950 off my belt and unexpectedly noticed that my battery was below 50%. I then saw a popup message indicating that my phone needed to restart to install updates. What updates? Anyway, I placed the phone on my wireless charger, went to settings and clicked restart, at which time I was reminded that I needed at least 40% (I was at 39%) to continue. Not wanting to wait an hour at the office for updates to complete I decided to let the phone charge and restart when I got home. On a wired charge the phone updated just fine. All good, right? Not so fast buddy.

This morning, as I do every morning, I got into Nextgen Reader and started reading about all of yesterday’s news, including all the new theoretical news from BUILD. I got down to the Windows Phone section and saw an article indicating that a Slow Ring update had gone out on Wednesday (yesterday) to Windows Mobile users. As I continued reading, I saw that there were some “known issues” with this new Slow Ring build. Wait, I said to myself. “Why should a Slow Ring build have known issues”. Isn’t that what the Fast Ring is for? As I read further I discovered that this new build, that I inadvertently installed last night, had a teeny little problem. If you happened to own a Microsoft Band 1 or 2, it would disconnect from your phone and you couldn’t pair again without hard resetting your phone. WTF!!!! Would Microsoft really release a Slow Ring build with a “known issue” that effectively disconnects their own products from each other. I went in to other room to fetch my Microsoft Band 2 and got the answer to my question. Yes. I tried pairing multiple times with no success. Rebooted the phone. Reinstalled the Microsoft Health app. Rebooted the Band. Nothing. Just a stupid error message explaining that the two devices could not pair. Note that I was pairing Bluetooth devices when many of you were still toddlers, so I found this downright silly. No actually, I found this seriously fucked up.

Now I won’t deny that I was the guy complaining that the Slow Ring folks never get any love. Usually receiving a new update the same day as the general public. Of if we were lucky, the day before. So I NEVER, NEVER, expected a Slow Ring build to be released with a bug that “REQUIRED” a hard reset of your phone. I just didn’t believe that would ever happen. But that’s exactly what I did this morning before jumping in the shower to get ready for work. I checked first to see that I had a reliable backup from 5:35AM today (that was convenient) and then tapped the RESET button. I was so frustrated at the time, I didn’t take all the other precautionary steps to backup some of the apps I have with peculiar backup methods (CSV files, email dumps) etc., so once I got to work and started to rebuild my phone I realized I had lost a lot of stuff. Probably not very important in our ever troubling world, but important to me. What for example. My mileage and fuel tracker, that I have been faithfully updating since my first Windows Phone in 2010. All the data, gone. Or the Weight Tracker app that I have faithfully updated every Saturday morning since June of 2015, helping me track my weight loss from 235 down to 194 last week (yah). Along with my future goals and targets. All gone. Or Clever To Do, now showing recurring tasks from 1/4/16, the last update. Not going to bother tapping through three months of tasks. Then of course, there is all the Authenticator nonsense, resetting signatures on eight email accounts, adding passwords to five of the eight accounts. Then checking all the sync characteristics to make sure everything is correct. Then relinking account, renaming, etc. Then restoring all the apps that do use Dropbox or OneDrive for backups. Got to the office at 12:00pm and haven’t done a snot of work yet. That means I will be here to 9:00 or 9:30 in an attempt to catch up. Thanks Microsoft. No, FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!

I tried to send the above screenshot from my phone using my Sharefolder app (of course, I have to reconfigure all the connections again) but was getting an error. It’s happened before after an update, so I deleted the app and went to the Store to reinstall. That’s when I was greeted by a message that there were 165 Pending Updates. WTF. I don’t even have 165 apps installed. Actually, before I went to the Store, I went through my apps and deleted anything I haven’t used in several months. Probably 50 or 60 apps and games. Leaving maybe 20-25 third party apps on the phone. I will purge more tonight. I finally just emailed the images to myself. It’s just so tiring.

Needless to say, I am back on the Production Build with my L950. I’ll leave my L640 on the Fast Ring as it only has pre-installed apps, and frankly I don’t give a shit about a $40 phone. But I am effectively done with Windows Insider. Microsoft can get feedback from others who don’t have anything better to do. I was really let down today and I’m disappointed. I don’t know. Maybe the whole Windows Phone / Windows Insider thing is a big psych experiment to see how people handle frustration and disappointment. Maybe if Microsoft discourages enough Windows Phone users they can tell the world they abandoned the mobile platform due to lack of interest. They sort of made that clear at BUILD. Maybe 2017 they say. Maybe. Oh, and FUCK YOU Microsoft!

Let me get back to reconfiguring my Windows Phone and my Band. Got another few hours to go.

6 COMMENTS

You shouldn’t write all those F words. You wrote article for public which it is very important to choose appropriate language here. Your responsibility is very bad. If I am your boss, you are fired!!

The simple logic, you shouldn’t opt in insider (slow or fast) to the phone that your data is important. How silly is this?? Your sense is bad, your word is bad. You should do something else. You don’t belong here!

ooh I agree, same surprise, asked to Gabe Aul on twitter to know since when Slow Ring get the same buggy build than the fast ring..10 days later. no answer. I was on Slow ring cause this 14200 was not enough stable..

Honestly though, it’s your own fault for not reading the warnings. The slow ring has the same warnings that there may be issues, but potentially more solutions. It never said that they would not bring over a build known bugs. The only thing the slow ring promises is less issues to CORE functions to the phone.

If you assume a risk after warnings, then you really only have yourself to blame. And if you have been an insider long enough, this isn’t the first time it has happened either. Early slow-ring builds of Windows 10 for PC had plenty of bugs.

If you really want to avoid it, stay on the production builds or opt out of being an insider.

I agree, and do take full responsibility. With that said, I have been in the Slow Ring, first on my 635, and since November on my 950, without issue. I never joined Windows Insider for PC specifically because of your comment above. My understanding was that the Slow Ring was intended for test builds that had already been rehashed, with any serious bugs squashed. If I had to reset my Band 2 this morning, or uninstall/reinstall the Microsoft Health app, you wouldn’t have read this article today. Just another day in the Slow lane for me. But having to hard reset your phone is what I consider a fairly serious bug. Only slightly less frustrating that say, no connectivity.

But this day has taught me some lessons. First, as noted above, no Windows Insider for me except for throwaway devices. And second, as my confidence level has dropped a few notches today, no important stuff on my phone. At least nothing that can’t easily sync. I think I might go back to relying on Excel spreadsheets, like it did 20 years ago instead of apps that may, or may not restore after a reset. Or disappear from the Store overnight without a trace. Really, I should know better. I learned ages ago that you need at least four separate backups of important stuff, and at least two of everything else. That implies no guarantees, but does lower the risk. If an app that collects data can’t be easily, automatically, backed up, it’s probably not worth owning. My goal tonight will be to get my phone down as close to stock as possible. So after the next reset (and I am sure there will be another) there will be less pain and disappointment.

But hey, there may be a silver lining in today’s events though. For the past four months my phone has been dropping Wi-Fi occasionally (every other day), requiring a power off/on cycle in order to find an available network. And the Ringer volume drops to 0 at least once a day, sometimes multiple times, causing me to miss calls and texts. Two of the reasons I wanted to be in the Slow Ring to hopefully catch a fix. Maybe the reset will address those issues, or create some new ones. Can’t wait for Windows 11.

Now suddenly my SD card is no longer being recognized. It was there this afternoon, after the reset, but before I downloaded 165 updates from the Store. Tried several reboots, removed and reinserted the card (64GB Sony) but no mas. Also, no Messaging sync. Supposed to get the last year’s worth of messaging, but all I have are the two Microsoft sent today to authenticate my accounts. Guess I will check the SD card on my PC before I do another HARD RESET to this pending POS when I get home. Oh joy.